Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective informal Tending to cause a clatter; noisy and possibly cumbersome.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective a rattling sound as of hard things striking together

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

clatter +‎ -y

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word clattery.

Examples

  • Bruce wants to move seats because he can't hear me; it's a lovely place but it is… clattery.

    Bruce Robinson: 'I'm just going to take my liver for a wash' 2011

  • How about the sound of the words — soft consonants, sliding like water over stones, or clattery consonants banging around?

    Writer Unboxed » Blog Archive » Listen to YOUR Voice 2010

  • I recall caroms as a delightfully clattery sort of a game.

    A Simpler and Safer Time Recalled 2011

  • Beck composed (but does not sing, though he shows up alone on other tracks) songs for Pilgrim's band, Sex Bob-Omb, which are uniformly clattery and brief and un-Beck-like.

    Album review: "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" soundtrack 2010

  • Their horses were skittish, all white rolling eyes and sweaty flanks, picking their way on clattery hooves across the cobblestones and through the milling crowds to form a ragged barricade between the unruly crowd and the park, the Polo Grounds.

    DIAMOND RUBY Joseph Wallace 2010

  • Their horses were skittish, all white rolling eyes and sweaty flanks, picking their way on clattery hooves across the cobblestones and through the milling crowds to form a ragged barricade between the unruly crowd and the park, the Polo Grounds.

    DIAMOND RUBY Joseph Wallace 2010

  • Their horses were skittish, all white rolling eyes and sweaty flanks, picking their way on clattery hooves across the cobblestones and through the milling crowds to form a ragged barricade between the unruly crowd and the park, the Polo Grounds.

    DIAMOND RUBY Joseph Wallace 2010

  • This gets at least one vote for the most pointless piano concerto in the active repertoire, a clattery stream of scales and arpeggios that the pianist must deliver at top speed in a desperate search to keep the audience from expiring out of sheer boredom at the lack of any musical ideas.

    Archive 2007-08-01 Lisa Hirsch 2007

  • She had loud, clattery doorknob earrings of her own and wore a gray sweatshirt that said MOMS RULE! in plaid stitching.

    Miss Misery Andy Greenwald 2006

  • She had loud, clattery doorknob earrings of her own and wore a gray sweatshirt that said MOMS RULE! in plaid stitching.

    Miss Misery Andy Greenwald 2006

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.